Fall Weather 2022

[NYSkiBlog]

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
National Weather Service Albany NY
601 AM EST Mon Dec 12 2022

.LONG TERM /THURSDAY THROUGH SUNDAY/...

Thursday into Thursday night, a closed upper low embedded
in a longwave trough will be moving eastward
across the upper Midwest towards the western Great Lakes. As
this feature moves eastward, the upper ridge deamplifies over
our region and the surface high retreats to the north. Mid-level
warm advection overspreads the region, and clouds should be on
the increase through the day Thursday ahead of our next weather
system.

This system looks to be a Miller type B storm, with a closed
upper low and associated surface cyclone tracking towards the
Great Lakes Thursday night through Friday night. As the upper
low phases with a southern stream disturbance, coastal
cyclogenesis takes place over or just off the Mid Atlantic Coast
Thursday night. This secondary cyclone then tracks
northeastward towards southern New England. The exact track of
this secondary low will determine the dominant precip type(s)
our region sees. Recent guidance suggests a track over Long
Island and then over eastern MA, which is a tick further north
than some previous guidance was showing. This solution would
support precip initially starting as mainly snow, but
transitioning to a rain/snow mix and eventually rain for valley
areas, with mainly snow for the higher elevations, especially
north and west of the Capital District. However, given that this
event is still 5 days out, we will likely continue to see
shifts in the model guidance over the coming days. Therefore,
will reiterate that confidence regarding the exact storm track
and therefore precip type remains low at this juncture. However,
this system looks very dynamic with plenty of forcing for
ascent, so expecting widespread precip with at least moderate
QPF amounts with this system.

 

[jasonwx]

Problem with this system there really isn’t a high in Quebec

 

[NorEaster27]

Problem with this system there really isn’t a high in Quebec

but there is a huge block, agreed airmass isnt great but this has elevation snow written all over it. Especially north of i90

 

[NorEaster27]

Biggest risk is the block pushing this too far south

 

[saratogahalfday]

but there is a huge block, agreed airmass isnt great but this has elevation snow written all over it. Especially north of i90

An elevation snow event is fine by me, my snow blower was very grumpy last night.

 

[tirolski]

An elevation snow event is fine by me, my snow blower was very grumpy last night.

Drove down to Lab to pick up my tuned skis.
Drastic difference in snow amounts do to elevation going up and down the hills and valleys.
At home the snow was like frozen glue. Lab had powder and was still snowing up top.
Letitsnow.

 

[wonderpony]

Wunderground is saying 10 inches in WP land.

 

[NYSkiBlog]

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
National Weather Service Albany NY
649 PM EST Mon Dec 12 2022

.LONG TERM /THURSDAY NIGHT THROUGH MONDAY/...

Our next potential winter weather event Thursday night into Friday
continues to be our primary focus for the upcoming long term period.
At this point, we have increasing confidence that there will be an
event with plenty of moisture and forcing to result in widespread
precipitation amounts. However, there is uncertainty regarding the
exact storm track which will ultimately determine precipitation
type. Following this event, prolonged westerly winds and cold air
advection may result in a long lasting lake effect event downwind of
Lake Ontario. Still some uncertainty regarding the wind field which
will determine where any lake effect bands end up. Read on for
details.

...a sufficiently cold air mass will be in place over the
Northeast which will support precipitation arriving as snow Thursday
night. Guidance is in good agreement that our secondary coastal low
will be strengthening as it tracks from VA/MD off the NJ/DE coast
Thursday night but where guidance differs is how far inland or how
far out to sea it tracks. The GFS is the furthest east with its
track suggest the coastal low moves closer to Cape Cod while the
ECWMF and CMC are further inland with low tracking over NYC into
southern New England. The exact track will determine how far inland
the warm nose can penetrate which will impact where any p-type
transitioning from snow to rain or wintry mix occurs. Although we
have uncertainty in the exact track of the low, there is increasing
confidence that precipitation will begin as all snow Thursday night
and any transitioning should hold off until late Thurs night or
Friday morning depending on the track. In addition, guidance also
indicates that any transitioning would be favored for valley areas
while higher terrain areas could hang on to the snow longer into
daytime Friday.

Once the sfc low tracks to our east, eastern NY and western New
England could see a transition back to all snow later in the day
Friday or Friday night as the deformation axis moves through the
region and winds shift to the northwest. With a strong fetch of
moisture off the western Atlantic and strong overall forcing, this
event appears moisture rich and capable of producing moderate QPF
amounts so we will maintain a watchful eye in the coming days as
winter weather headlines may be needed, especially for higher
terrain areas where snow could be maintained for a longer duration.

In the wake of this event, westerly flow looks to persist Friday
night into Saturday and possibly Sunday as the parent low remains to
our west and the coastal low exits to our east. Westerly flow and
cold air advection would support lake effect snow, esp for our
western Adirondack areas, and we increased POPs to high chance and
likely through this period to indicate that wintry precipitation
could continue well into the weekend until winds shifted northwest.
This matched up well with WFO BUF/BGM thinking.

 

[saratogahalfday]

.LONG TERM /FRIDAY THROUGH MONDAY/...
As of 312 AM EST Tuesday...The forecast for Friday and Saturday
continues to look very complicated with the American models
diverging from the ECMWF and CMC solutions. At preset, it looks like
a coastal low will form by the Delmarva peninsula Thursday night and
rapidly translate northward along the New England Coastline. The
last 3 runs of the GFS have decided to take this developing low
pressure system east of Benchmark which would be the nightmare
solution for snow lovers as it would keep the main moisture axis
offshore and leave us with a long-duration light snow event that
eventually produce decent snowfall but nothing really notable.
However, the ECMWF and CMC solutions bring the low pressure system
inland over central Massachusetts and into Maine thereafter. These
solutions is more favorable for snow lovers as it`ll bring more
snowfall to the region.

For this forecast cycle, we`ve gone ahead and trended closer to the
ECMWF and CMC solutions as ensembles are showing a tight clustering
of the solutions that bring the low pressure system inland. The GFS
continues to remain the outlier but the GEFS does have a similar
clustering toward the western solutions. Even with the more
favorable track, we are lacking two key ingredients for a big
snowfall event; cold air and North Atlantic Blocking. With the NAO
trending back neutral, this system should have no problem quickly
pushing into Nova Scotia by Sunday morning leaving us with just a 24
hour period in which snowfall would be likely across the region.

Here is how we expect things to pan out play-by play:

-A warm front will lift from north to south bringing a good 3-4 hour
period of light to moderate snowfall Friday morning. This looks like
it could impact the morning commute, especially across central and
northern Vermont. Snowfall rates could briefly approach an inch per
hour given some of the guidance so this is something we will be
focusing on in the coming days.

-Once the warm front pushes through, a strong easterly low level jet
will set up across the region. This should create downsloping
conditions across the Champlain and Connecticut River Valleys. Any
precipitation still falling in these areas will likely mix with or
change over to rain in the afternoon hours while higher elevations
will likely stay prevailing light snow with maybe a mix of rain
briefly.

-Once the surface low shifts to the north and east Friday evening we
should see any mix of rain change to all snow. Given the latest
trends, it looks like snow showers could continue through much of
the day Saturday and even into Sunday. The big question will be the
wind direction as convergent northwesterly flow will be a boon for
portions of the northern Champlain Valley while a more westerly wind
direction could favor areas of downsloping in the Valley with focus
shifting to possible lake effect.

-A continuation of snow showers, especially in the higher terrain,
is possible into early next week with temperature likely below
seasonal normals following decent snowfall. We don`t have estimates
on total snow at this time as it`s still a little too far out but
stay tuned!

 

[x10003q]

Looks like a fun ride up after work on Friday.